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Open Source Software Fabien Pinckaers Els Van Vossel Drive your Sales & Marketing Activities with Making Business Applications accessible Close Leads, Automate Marketing Campaigns and Get Accurate Forecasts

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  • Open Source Software

    Fabien PinckaersEls Van Vossel

    Drive your Sales & MarketingActivities with

    Making Business Applications accessible

    Close Leads, Automate Marketing Campaignsand Get Accurate Forecasts

  • Open Source SoftwareMaking Business Applications accessible to All Companies 

    Drive your Sales & Marketing Activities with Open ERP:

    Best sales practices, build lasting relationships 

    by Els Van Vossel and Fabien Pinckaers

    This book is published under free license  Creative CommonsBYNCSA 

    http://creativecommons.org/licenses/byncsa/2.0/be/deed.en_US

    You are free:

    • to share — to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work • to remix — to make derivative works 

    • Under the following conditions:

    • Attribution. You must attribute the work by stating «The authors of the original work are Els Van Vossel and FabienPinckaers» with at least the same prominence as in the original work and as in any other attributions for this work (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).

    • Noncommercial. You may not use this work for commercial purposes. 

    • Share Alike. If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar license to this one. 

    • For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work.The best way to do this is with a link to the web page cited above.

    • Any of the above conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright holder. • Nothing in this license impairs or restricts the author's moral rights.

    First Edition 

    Many of the designations used by manufacturers and suppliers to distinguish their products are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book, and Open Object Press was aware of a trademark claim, the designations have been printed in initial capitals. 

    While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher and the authors assume no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein. 

    Open Object Press is a division of OpenERP S.A.  (www.openerp.com) 

    Copyright © 2011 Els Van Vossel and Fabien Pinckaers 

    First edition April 2011           ISBN : 9782960087611

  • 40, Chaussée de Namur1367 GrandRosièrehttp://openerp.com/

    Special Thanks to Marc Laporte, Olivier Laurent,Gary Malherbe and Grégory Dethier

    OpenERP is a trademark of OpenERP S.A.The software is available under the AGPL license version 3.

  • 40, Chaussée de Namur1367 GrandRosièrehttp://openerp.com/

    From the same Editor

    OpenERP for Retail and Industrial Management – Steps towardsSales, Logistics and Manufacturing Integration, 2009,Fabien Pinckaers and Geoff Gardiner, ISBN: 9782960087604

    The Authors: Els Van Vossel and Fabien Pinckaers

  • v

    Contents

    Foreword xiOpen Source Software: Making Business Applications accessible . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi

    The OpenERP Solution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xii

    Structure of this book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xii

    About the authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii

    Fabien Pinckaers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii

    Els Van Vossel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii

    Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiv

    I First Steps with OpenERP 1

    1 Installation and Initial Setup 3

    1.1 Use OpenERP Online . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

    1.2 Getting Started with OpenERP Online . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

    2 Complete Example: from Lead to Sales Order 11

    II Managing Customer Acquisition 21

    3 Managing your Address Book 23

    3.1 Creating and Updating Partners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

    3.2 Managing your Contacts & Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

    3.3 Customizing Partner Fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

    3.4 Performing Actions on Customers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

    3.5 Finding your Partners using Filters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

    3.6 Categorizing your Partners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

    3.7 An Alternative to Manage your Contacts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

    4 Managing your Leads 33

  • vi

    4.1 Storing your Business Cards effectively . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

    4.2 Importing a Leads Database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

    4.3 Organizing Leads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

    4.4 Analysing Leads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

    5 Optimizing your Sales Cycle through Opportunities 41

    5.1 Converting Leads into Customers or Opportunities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

    5.2 Adapting OpenERP to your Sales Organization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

    5.3 Defining the Key Steps of your Sales Cycle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

    5.4 Planning your Next Actions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

    5.5 Planning your Meetings & Calls Effectively . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

    5.6 Scheduling Closing Dates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

    6 Connecting with your Email and Accessing from your Mobile Device 53

    6.1 Communication Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

    6.2 Managing your CRM from Microsoft Outlook . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

    6.3 Managing your CRM from Mozilla Thunderbird . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

    6.4 Synchronizing your CRM with Mobile Devices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

    6.4.1 OpenERP Server and SSL Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

    6.4.2 Calendars on iPhone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68

    6.4.3 Calendars on Android . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

    6.4.4 Calendars in Evolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

    6.4.5 Calendars in Sunbird/Lightning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

    7 Managing your Indirect Sales 71

    7.1 Forwarding Opportunities to Channel Partners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

    7.2 Geolocalization of a Partner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

    8 Keeping Track of your Communications 73

    8.1 Tracking your Customer’s History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

    8.2 Tracking Sales Orders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

    8.3 Storing Attached Documents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

  • vii

    III Driving your Marketing Campaigns 77

    9 Lead Automation with Marketing Campaigns 79

    9.1 Example of a Complete Marketing Campaign . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

    9.2 Designing your Campaigns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

    9.3 Segmenting your Campaigns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

    9.4 Email Templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82

    9.5 Setting up your Marketing Campaigns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82

    9.5.1 Guidelines for Creating a Campaign . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

    9.6 Pushing your Campaign Results further . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

    10 Automating your Lead Acquisition 89

    10.1 How to Link a Web Contact Form to OpenERP? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

    11 Profiling your Customers 93

    11.1 Establishing the Profiles of Prospects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

    11.2 Using Profiles effectively . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94

    IV Closing your Deals: from Quotation to Sales Order 97

    12 Creating your Products 99

    12.1 Using the Correct Product Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100

    12.2 Procurement Methods – Make to Stock and Make to Order . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100

    12.3 Choosing Supply Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102

    12.4 Understanding Units of Measure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

    12.5 Categorizing your Products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

    13 Managing your Sales Quotations 107

    14 Advanced Features 113

    14.1 Defining Packaging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113

    14.2 Managing Alerts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114

    14.3 Controlling Deliveries and Invoicing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117

    14.3.1 Configuring Orders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117

    14.4 Managing Carriers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117

  • viii

    14.4.1 Tariff Grids . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118

    14.4.2 Delivery Modes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120

    14.5 Keeping Track of your Margins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120

    14.5.1 Margins on Sales Orders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121

    14.5.2 Margins by Product . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121

    14.6 Pricing Policies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123

    14.6.1 Creating Pricelists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

    14.6.2 Example of a Pricelist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128

    14.6.3 Pricelists and Managing Currencies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131

    14.7 Rebates at the End of a Campaign . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131

    14.8 Keeping track of Open Orders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133

    14.9 Changing Order Layout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134

    14.10 Invoice Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135

    V Installing & Configuring your OpenERP 137

    15 OpenERP Installation on Linux 139

    15.1 PostgreSQL Server Installation and Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139

    15.2 OpenERP Server Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142

    15.3 OpenERP Client Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144

    15.4 OpenERP Web Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147

    15.4.1 Supported Browsers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148

    15.5 Updating your OpenERP Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149

    16 OpenERP Installation on Windows 151

    16.1 OpenERP All-In-One Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151

    16.2 PostgreSQL Server Installation and Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157

    16.3 OpenERP Server Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159

    16.4 OpenERP Client Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168

    16.5 OpenERP Web Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171

    16.6 Troubleshooting and Windows Complementary Install Information . . . . . . . . . . . 174

    16.7 Updating your OpenERP Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177

  • ix

    Conclusion 181You are not alone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181

    The available resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182

    The Community of Users and Developers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182

    OpenERP Partners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182

    The Main Developer, OpenERP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183

    Index 185

  • x

  • xi

    ForewordInformation Systems have played an increasingly visible role over the past several years in improvingthe competitiveness of business. They are more than just tools for handling repetitive tasks; they willguide and advance all of a company’s daily activities. Integrated Management Software is today veryoften a key source of significant competitive advantage.

    Open Source Software: Making Business Applicationsaccessible

    Some may look at the Business Application market as a mature market dominated by a few large keyplayers, with no new business opportunities.

    This would be ignoring the market reality. So many customers are frustrated by their experience withexisting vendors; so many companies around the world need to have access to business applications,but cannot afford them.

    OpenERP believes that business applications should not be a luxury. That any company, anywhere inthe world, should be able to afford the best tools to professionally expand business. That is one of thereasons why OpenERP needs to break the existing rules of the ERPs and the Business Applicationsmarket.

    Customers should use their budget smartly and invest in customizing the application to their specificneeds, rather than paying expensive license fees. OpenERP is committed to the Open Source BusinessModel precisely because Open Source allows for this. Open Source is a disruptive model, as it createsmore value for the customers.

    For decades, customers have developed applications which remained specific to their own needs, and inthe end proved extremely expensive to maintain. Open Source means that customers can benefit frompast developments of other companies. Also by contributing to the evolution of the software, the userswill enjoy the guarantee that their development will be included in future versions of the software. Oneof the major advantages is that such a Community brings a wealth of new functionality.

    Open Source also allows us to engage with our customers differently. Since there is no licensing cost,any potential customer can download, test and use the software. OpenERP has no need for an expensivesales force to promote the product. OpenERP just needs to make the best product and make it availableto customers.

    Open Source allows for many barriers in this industry to be broken. The software is available to manycompanies who could otherwise not afford expensive business applications license fees. The OpenERPsolution allows customers to use their money smartly and tailor the software to their individual needs.OpenERP leverages from its customer base to enrich the software and finally eradicate any lock-in toallow customers to use and even drop the software freely.

  • xii

    The OpenERP Solution

    OpenERP can build a new breed of business applications, more modular, more customer-friendly, fullyweb-based, which others cannot due to the heritage of their legacy systems.

    OpenERP is a comprehensive suite of business applications including Sales, CRM, Projectmanagement, Warehouse management, Manufacturing, Financial management, and Human Resources,just to name a few. More than 1000 OpenERP modules are available from the OpenERP Apps marketplace (http://apps.openerp.com/).

    The key to continued sales success is effective Customer Relationship Management, and that isprecisely the main topic of the book you are reading. OpenERP’s CRM and Sales features are flexibleand highly developed to assist you in managing all aspects of partner relationships.

    OpenERP can share information with the most common email clients, calendars and mobile phones,allowing your staff to build on previous productivity and experience by continuing to use familiaremail and office systems, now connected to OpenERP. In a few clicks, your sales person can transfernecessary information to the OpenERP software. You can link important emails to the CRM directlyfrom your current mailbox and even reply from your own mailbox and have the answer stored in yourCRM automatically.

    Structure of this book

    Part One, First Steps with OpenERP (page 1), starts with the basic steps to install OpenERP. You willalso be introduced to the main concepts, such as Sales Teams & Stages, and you will be guided througha complete workflow, from Quotation to Sales Order. Part One also presents the OpenERP Online offer(SaaS solution), and the configuration wizards in the Getting Started with OpenERP Online (page 5)chapter. To discover OpenERP’s features, you can jump directly to Part Two.

    Part Two, Managing Customer Acquisition (page 21) explains you how to manage your customerrelationships with OpenERP. You will learn more about how to manage Leads and Opportunities,to integrate existing communication tools with OpenERP, to efficiently manage a sales and channeldepartment, and to monitor performance.

    Part Three, Driving your Marketing Campaigns (page 77), is devoted to Direct Marketing. In astep-by-step tutorial, we will guide you through the process of setting up a marketing campaign inOpenERP.

    Part Four, Closing your Deals: from Quotation to Sales Order (page 97), guides you from quotation tosales order, explaining several advanced sales features.

    Finally part Five, Installing & Configuring your OpenERP (page 137), explains the detailed installationprocedures for OpenERP. This chapter also explains how to install the Thunderbird & Outlook plugins,to get the most out of your existing email programs.

    http://apps.openerp.com/

  • xiii

    About the authors

    Fabien Pinckaers

    Fabien Pinckaers was only eighteen years old when he started his first company. Today, over ten yearslater, he has founded and managed several new technology companies, all based on Free / Open Sourcesoftware.

    He originated Tiny ERP, now OpenERP, and is the director of two companies including OpenERPS.A., the editor of OpenERP. In a few years time, he has grown the Tiny group from one to sixty-fiveemployees without loans or external fund-raising, and while making a profit.

    He has also developed several large scale projects, such as Auction-in-Europe.com, which became theleader in the art market in Belgium. Even today people sell more art works there than on ebay.be.

    He is also the founder of the LUG (Linux User Group) of Louvain-la-Neuve, and of several free projectslike OpenReport, OpenStuff and Tiny Report. Educated as a civil engineer (polytechnic), he has wonseveral IT prizes in Europe such as Wired and l’Inscene.

    A fierce defender of free software in the enterprise, he is in constant demand as a conference speakerand he is the author of numerous articles dealing with free software in the management of the enterprise.

    Follow Fabien on his blog http://fptiny.blogspot.com/ or on twitter fpopenerp.

    Els Van Vossel

    Els Van Vossel always had a dedication to both written and spoken word. Clear and explicitcommunication is crucial.

    Educated as a Professional Translator in Antwerp, she worked as an independent translator on thelocalization of major ERP software. Els acquired ERP knowledge and decided to start working as afunctional ERP consultant and a Technical Communicator for ERP software.

    As such, the world of OpenSource software became more and more attractive. She started workingwith OpenERP software in her free time and doing so, Els really wanted to meet Fabien Pinckaers toshare thoughts about documentation and training strategy. At a Partner Meeting she heard Fabien waslooking for someone to manage the trainings & documentation. This was absolutely an opportunity tobe qualified, and now Els is the OpenERP Training Program Manager and in this job responsible forthe worldwide training and certification program of OpenERP.

    Being an author of several Software Manuals, she finds it exciting to work on the OpenERPdocumentation and continuously take it to a higher level. Please note that this is a hell of a job, but Elsfinds great pleasure in doing it!

    Follow Els on her blog http://training-openerp.blogspot.com/ or on twitter elsvanvossel.

    http://fptiny.blogspot.com/http://training-openerp.blogspot.com/

  • xiv

    Acknowledgements

    From Els Van Vossel

    Thank you Fabien, for offering me the opportunity to work with OpenERP. I thank all OpenERP teammembers for their support and understanding. My special thanks to my family who encouraged me towrite this book.

    From Fabien Pinckaers

    I address my thanks to all of the team at OpenERP for their hard work in preparing, translating andre-reading the book in its various forms. My particular thanks to Laurence Henrion and my family forsupporting me throughout all this effort.

  • 1

    Part I

    First Steps with OpenERPOpenERP is an impressive software system, being easy to use and yet providing great benefits in helpingyou manage your company. It is easy to install under both Windows and Linux compared with otherenterprise-scale systems, and offers unmatched functionality.

  • 2

  • 3

    Installation and Initial Setup 1Whether you want to test OpenERP or put it into full production, you have at least two possible startingpoints:

    • you can use OpenERP Online by subscribing to http://www.openerp.com/online/;

    • you can install the solution on your own computers to test it in your company’s systemenvironment.

    In this chapter, the easy-to-use OpenERP Online solution will be briefly explained. For moreinformation about installing OpenERP on your computer, please refer to the chapter Installing &Configuring your OpenERP (page 137).

    Some Interesting Websites from OpenERP

    • Main Site: http://www.openerp.com,

    • OpenERP Online Site: http://www.openerp.com/online,

    • Online demo at http://demo.openerp.com,

    • Documentation site: http://doc.openerp.com/,

    • Community discussion forum where you can often receiveassistance: http://www.openerp.com/forum/.

    Current documentation

    The procedure for installing OpenERP and its web server are likely tochange and improve with each new version, so you should always checkeach release’s documentation on the website for the latest installationprocedures.

    1.1 Use OpenERP Online

    Nothing is easier for you to discover OpenERP than subscribing to the OpenERP Online offer. You justneed a web browser to get started.

    The Online service can be particularly useful to small companies, that just want to get going quickly atlow cost. You have immediate access to OpenERP’s Integrated Management System built on the typeof enterprise architecture used in many organizations.

    http://www.openerp.com/online/http://www.openerp.comhttp://www.openerp.com/onlinehttp://demo.openerp.comhttp://doc.openerp.com/http://www.openerp.com/forum/

  • 4 CHAPTER 1. INSTALLATION AND INITIAL SETUP

    OpenERP’s Online offer includes several services: hosting at high bandwidth, database management,stable security update, backups, maintenance (24/7 server monitoring), bug fixing and migrations.

    OpenERP guarantees that the software running on OpenERP Online is exactly the same as the OpenSource official version of OpenERP. Any improvement made on OpenERP will be available online.This allows you to easily switch from the online version to the local version anytime.

    So even if the OpenERP Online solution might be the best solution to suit your needs today, you caneasily switch to an installation on your own servers according to your company’s changing requirementsor growth. You are also able to change your service provider anytime, while continuing to use the exactsame system. Hence, you do not depend on your host. In addition, OpenERP works with standard andopen formats and programming languages which allow you to export your data and use them in anyother software.

    These advantages give you total control over your data, your software, your platform.

    Figure 1.1: Subscribe and Start with OpenERP Online

    If you want to start working with the online platform, you can navigate tohttp://www.openerp.com/online. After successful registration, you will be able to configure anduse OpenERP online. To log in to your OpenERP Online account, you will receive a username andpassword. You can build the software to fit your needs, at your own pace!

    OpenERP Online - Software as a Service - is hosted by OpenERP and paid in the form of a monthlysubscription. The pricing model is extremely simple. OpenERP charges a fixed fee per month per user.You will get an invoice each month according to the number of users registered in the system at thattime. If you add new users during the next 30 days, they will only be charged with the next invoice.You can find the details of current pricing and payment options at http://www.openerp.com/online.

    http://www.openerp.com/onlinehttp://www.openerp.com/online

  • CHAPTER 1. INSTALLATION AND INITIAL SETUP 5

    Free Trial

    For a month’s free trial, check out OpenERP’shttp://www.openerp.com/online, which enables you to get started quicklywithout incurring costs for integration or for buying computer systems.After the free trial expires, you can easily continue using OpenERP Online.

    1.2 Getting Started with OpenERP Online

    If you want to focus on your customers, you need tools: to capture all the knowledge you have available;to help you analyze what you know; to make it easy to use all of that knowledge and analysis. OpenERPinvites you to discover the CRM & Sales Management Business Application!

    In this chapter, you can start exploring OpenERP!

    Use a web browser of your choice to connect to OpenERP Web.

    Figure 1.2: Web Client at Startup

    OpenERP suggests that you configure your database using a series of questions. In the software, theseseries of questions are managed through so-called Configuration Wizards.

    Click the Start Configuration button to continue.

    The next configuration wizard will help you to decide what your user interface will look like, whetherthe screens will only show the most important fields - Simplified - or whether you also want tosee the fields for the more advanced users, the Extended view. Select Extended and click Next tocontinue.

    http://www.openerp.com/online

  • 6 CHAPTER 1. INSTALLATION AND INITIAL SETUP

    User Preferences

    You can easily switch from Simplified to Extended view by changing yourUser Preferences.

    In the next wizard, you can fill your company data, select your company’s base currency and add yourcompany logo which can be printed on reports. Click Next to continue.

    Select the Customer Relationship Management and Sales Management businessapplications for installation and click Install. Now OpenERP will start to install CRM & Sales, allowingyou to do a complete sales cycle, from lead / opportunity to quotation and sales order. You will have towait for the next configuration wizard to be displayed (Loading will appear).

    Figure 1.3: Selecting the CRM & Sales Functionality

    OpenERP’s modularity enables you to install a single Business Application (such as CRM) if thatis all you need. Of course, you can choose to also install Sales Management, to handle quotations,sales orders and sales invoices as well. For now, please install Customer RelationshipManagement and Sales Management, as these two Business Applications will be discussed inthis book.

    Reconfigure

    Keep in mind that you can change or reconfigure the system any time, forinstance through the Reconfigure option in the main bar.

    When you choose a business application for installation, OpenERP will automatically propose to addor configure related (smaller) applications to enrich your system. When you install CRM, OpenERPwill also ask you whether you want to install Fetchmail, or Sales FAQ, for instance.

    The figure Selecting Accounting Configuration (page 7) shows the Accounting ApplicationConfiguration screen that appears when you select Sales Management to be installed.

  • CHAPTER 1. INSTALLATION AND INITIAL SETUP 7

    Figure 1.4: Selecting Accounting Configuration

    Indeed, accounting is required to create sales invoices. Select the Generic Chart of Account and fill inthe Sale Tax (%) applicable in your country. Click Configure to continue the configuration.

    Accounting

    Please note that you can perfectly well use OpenERP’s CRM without doingyour accounting in OpenERP. When you only install CRM, there is no needto configure accounting.

    OpenERP CRM offers lots of features. You can easily manage your address book (prospects, customers,...), keep track of leads and/or opportunities, manage meetings & phone calls, share (sales) knowledgeand much more.

    The figure Selecting CRM Configuration (page 8) shows the CRM Application Configuration screenthat appears when you select Customer Relationship Management to be installed.

    To stay in line with what will be described later in this book, please install the following options:

    • Opportunity to Quotationwill be checked by default, allowing you to create quotationsfrom an opportunity,

    • Sale FAQ to install a company wiki to share your sales knowledge,

    • Calendar Synchronizing to link your OpenERP calendar to your mobile device, forinstance,

    • Fetch Emails to manage incoming and outgoing emails in OpenERP directly,

  • 8 CHAPTER 1. INSTALLATION AND INITIAL SETUP

    Figure 1.5: Selecting CRM Configuration

    • Thunderbird or Outlook according to the email client you are using, to link your currentmailbox to OpenERP and to create new leads or partners in OpenERP, directly from yourmailbox.

    If you have selected all of the above options, the following Configuration Wizards will appear:

    • Configure your Sales application: click Configure to accept the default settings (no optionschecked).

    • Configure your Knowledge application: click Configure to accept the default settings.

    • Thunderbird / Outlook Plug-in Configuration: for now, you only have to click the Save asbutton to save the plug-in to your disk (or desktop). Then you can click Configure to continuethe installation.

    • Configure your Accounting application: click Configure to accept the default settings.

    • Configure your Sales application: click Configure to accept the default settings.

    • Knowledge application configuration: click Next to accept the default settings for the serveraddress.

    Plug-ins

    For the configuration of the plug-in, please refer to the settings in chapterManaging your CRM from Mozilla Thunderbird (page 61) or Managingyour CRM from Microsoft Outlook (page 56).

    OpenERP’s menu will be displayed, because your system is now ready for actual configuration. To getstarted, you click the Sales button in OpenERP’s main screen. In the next chapter Adapting OpenERP toyour Sales Organization (page 43) you will start working in the CRM application by telling OpenERPhow your company’s sales teams are organized.

  • CHAPTER 1. INSTALLATION AND INITIAL SETUP 9

    As your business is growing and evolving all the time, your requirements as to the use of OpenERPare likely to change. To sustain your growth, you can easily extend your CRM with other OpenERPbusiness applications, such as logistics or HR, to name some. OpenERP offers this flexibility; youcan start with one business application, such as Customer Relationship Management, and graduallycomplete OpenERP to suit your ever changing needs!

  • 10 CHAPTER 1. INSTALLATION AND INITIAL SETUP

  • 11

    Complete Example: from Lead to Sales Order

    2In this chapter, we will show you a complete sales flow, from lead to opportunity to quotation to salesorder in a step-by-step scenario.

    First you will get an explanation about the use case (what Thomas or one of his colleagues is supposedto do). Then the Notes will learn you how Thomas (or a colleague of his) enters the information inOpenERP CRM. For the simplicity of the use case, we will do all of the steps under the Admin user.

    Simplified or Extended View

    In OpenERP your user interface will look slightly different according tothe User Preferences. In Simplified view, the screens will only showthe most important fields / tab pages. To see also the fields for the moreadvanced users, you should switch to the Extended view. You caneasily switch from Simplified to Extended view by changing your UserPreferences through the ‘Edit Preferences´ button. For this use case, pleaseswitch to ´Extended´ view.

    1. Create a new campaign

    Your company is exhibiting at the “House & Design” Fair in Paris and Thomas, a salesman of yourcompany, meets lots of prospects during this event. Because Luc, the Sales Manager, would like toknow the return on investment from hiring a stand at this fair, he asks Thomas, who will be hosting thisevent, to make a “House & Design” campaign.

    Campaign

    To create a new campaign, Thomas goes to Sales → Configuration → Sales→ Campaigns and clicks the New button. In the Campaign Name field, hetypes House & Design.

    2. Create and qualify a new lead

    Thomas has to enter all contacts he met at the House & Design Fair as a new lead (contacts, prospects),assigning each individual lead to the “House & Design” campaign. He will start by adding a lead forMr. John Doe of the The Interior Design Company who is interested in redecorating his office.

  • 12 CHAPTER 2. COMPLETE EXAMPLE: FROM LEAD TO SALES ORDER

    Figure 2.1: Campaign

    Leads

    To create a new lead, Thomas goes to Sales → Leads and clicks the Newbutton. The subject of a lead is in blue, because it is a mandatory field,so Thomas enters Potential interior design customer in that field. He usesthe Notes field to add more information about the lead. When saving thelead, it will be in Draft state. Thomas opens it for further follow-up. In thechapter Managing your Leads (page 33) you will find more details aboutlead creation.

    Figure 2.2: Example of a Lead

    To contact his leads after the Fair and check if any of them can be qualified as a business opportunity,Thomas would like to group his leads by the “House & Design” Campaign, to have an overview of allthe leads generated through this campaign.

  • CHAPTER 2. COMPLETE EXAMPLE: FROM LEAD TO SALES ORDER 13

    Group by

    To group his leads by campaign, Thomas goes to Sales → Leads and clicksthe Group by list to show the buttons he can use. He clicks the Campaignbutton and notices that no lead is visible, but only the various campaigns.Each campaign has an arrow in front; he clicks the arrow to display all theleads for that campaign.

    Figure 2.3: Leads grouped by Campaign

    3. Convert the lead into an opportunity and create a new customer

    Because the lead for John Doe from The Interior Design Company looks promising, Thomas decidesto convert it into an opportunity and at the same time add a new Customer to the company’s addressbook.

    On the business opportunity, the salesman should provide more information, such as the estimatedincome. Thomas indicates that the expected revenue would be 5,000.00C, and that the success rate ofthe opportunity at this stage is 20%.

    Thomas sets Luc, the sales manager, as the person responsible to follow up the opportunity. He alsosets the date for the next action and describes that he has to call the potential customer to plan a meetingwith Luc, the sales manager.

  • 14 CHAPTER 2. COMPLETE EXAMPLE: FROM LEAD TO SALES ORDER

    Convert to Opportunity

    To convert the lead into an opportunity, Thomas goes to Sales → Sales→ Leads and opens the lead concerned (there are various possibilitiesto quickly find the lead he needs). Thomas opens the lead and clicksthe Convert to Opportunity button (he can also do this from the list ofleads by clicking the Convert to Opportunity arrow of the lead concerned).OpenERP asks Thomas whether he wants to create a new partner. Heconfirms by clicking Continue to add the new potential customer to yourcompany’s address book. Then he clicks Next to convert the promisinglead into an opportunity. In the Expected Revenue field, Thomas types5,000.00C, and he enters a success rate of 20%. Thomas clicks the CreateOpportunity button. As a Next Action Date, he sets tomorrow’s date and inthe Next Action field he types Phone customer to plan meeting.

    Filters

    The Advanced Search View provides a very user-friendly filteringmechanism to easily look up desired records from the list.

    Usually, a filter view is composed of three elements, the Filter buttons at the top, the Extended Filtersand the Group by option.

    These filters are dynamic, so according to filters you apply, extra columns may be addedto the view.

    You can also easily combine filters; an arrow will be displayed and you will get a structure accordingto the order in which you clicked the Filter buttons.

    Simply by changing the order in which you select your buttons, you will get a completelydifferent filtered view. E.g. select Salesman first, then Campaign or vice versa.

    4. Plan a meeting

    One day later, Thomas contacts the prospect and convinces him to meet Luc so that the sales managercan give more information about the product range in view of a quotation.

    Thomas plans a meeting for Luc. This meeting is organized next week with the customer and is relatedto the opportunity. He sets a reminder for Luc.

  • CHAPTER 2. COMPLETE EXAMPLE: FROM LEAD TO SALES ORDER 15

    Figure 2.4: Convert Lead to Opportunity

    Meeting

    Thomas goes to the list of opportunities through Sales → Sales →Opportunities to check his next actions. He opens the opportunity andcontacts John Doe. He enters the key elements of his phone call in theDetails field. To plan the meeting, Thomas clicks the Schedule Meetingbutton and clicks the Week button in the Calendar view. He uses the dragand drop function to schedule the meeting for Luc. He plans the meetingnext week from 2 pm to 3 pm. He sets Luc as the person responsible andsets a reminder to be send 2 hours before the start of the meeting. He alsochanges the Next Action Date in the opportunity to the meeting date.

    Figure 2.5: Meeting Calendar

  • 16 CHAPTER 2. COMPLETE EXAMPLE: FROM LEAD TO SALES ORDER

    5. Log an incoming phone call from the customer

    Figure 2.6: Incoming (Inbound) Call

    A few days later, John Doe calls and Eric, the Product Manager, answers the phone. The customer asksEric if Luc, the Sales Manager, can bring a product catalog when he comes to see him.

    Eric enters a summary of the phone call as an inbound call, and links it to The Interior Design Company.

    Phone Calls

    Eric goes to Sales → Sales → Phone Calls and clicks Inbound, then Newto start entering the call. The call can be entered in the line. In the CallSummary, he enters Bring product catalog on next visit and assigns thecall to The Interior Design Company. He enters a summary of the phonecall in the Description field so that Luc knows exactly what has beendiscussed.

    Call Summary

    Eric can also click the Form view button to open the call form, so that hecan add a summary of the phone call in the Description field to makesure that Luc knows exactly what has been discussed.

    6. Check the history of the customer

    To prepare his meeting with The Interior Design Company, Luc checks the related customer form toget the history of all related events.

    History

    Luc goes to Sales → Address Book → Customers and types Interior in theName field and clicks Search. He clicks the customer to open the form. Onthe History tab, Luc gets an overview of all the events, such as meetingsand phone calls. So he notices that he has to bring a product catalog to themeeting.

    7. Convert the opportunity into a sales quotation

  • CHAPTER 2. COMPLETE EXAMPLE: FROM LEAD TO SALES ORDER 17

    Figure 2.7: Customer History

    During the meeting, the customer The Interior Design Company finally asks to receive a quotation foran Office Desk and Chair. Luc generates the quotation directly from the business opportunity.

    Figure 2.8: Product

  • 18 CHAPTER 2. COMPLETE EXAMPLE: FROM LEAD TO SALES ORDER

    Quotation & Products

    Luc opens the opportunity concerned from Sales → Sales → Opportunities.He clicks the Convert to Quote button, then Create to make a quotation thatis automatically linked to the opportunity. Now he can enter the products hewill be selling. Luc has to create a new product, because the desk ordered isa brand new product. From the sales order line, Luc presses the F1 button inthe Product field to create a new product. He enters the data as specifiedin the screenshot. To print the quotation, he clicks Quotation / Order in theReports section at the right side of the screen.

    8. Check the pipeline of revenues for the next months

    Luc, the Sales Manager, would also like to check the quality of his sales team, and he would like toknow the delay to close the opportunity. He would like to see the average closing time for the House &Design campaign.

    Average Closing Time

    From the Sales → Reporting → Opportunities Analysis, Luc finds theaverage time taken to successfully respond to a request from a customer inthe Delay to Close field. Instead of using the default grouping by salesman,Luc clicks the Salesman button in the Group by list to no longer group bysalesman, and then he clicks the Campaign button to group by campaign.

    9. Convert the quotation into a sales order

    After some discussion about the prices, the customer decides to sign a contract. Luc confirms thequotation to turn it into a sales order.

    Sales Orders

    Luc opens the quotation concerned from Sales → Sales Orders. He clicksthe Quotation button to see no confirmed sales orders. He opens thequotation by clicking the pencil in front of it, and changes the prices. Thenhe clicks the Confirm Order button to turn the quotation into a sales order.To print the sales order, he clicks Quotation / Order in the Reports sectionat the right side of the screen.

    Below you find a graphical representation of the sales flow we explained before; the part from quotationto sales order. This view is available in OpenERP. You can open this Process view by clicking thequestion mark next to the Sales Order title.

  • CHAPTER 2. COMPLETE EXAMPLE: FROM LEAD TO SALES ORDER 19

    Figure 2.9: From Quotation to Invoice

    Figure 2.10: View Buttons

    Before going to the next chapter, just a quick word about the different View buttons in OpenERP.The screenshot below shows the kinds of buttons available. Each button represents a different way oflooking at data.

    From the opportunities screen, Thomas will click the first List view button to get an overview ofseveral opportunities at a time. When Thomas wants more information about a specific opportunity,he will switch to Form view. Then Thomas decides he wants to see the opportunities in a graphicalrepresentation, so he clicks the Graph (3rd) button to display a graph with the opportunities expressedaccording to Category versus Expected Revenue. He could choose to display the opportunities inCalendar view. Thomas wants to see his meetings in a bar chart representation, and so he clicks theGannt view button. To see a process representation of his marketing campaign, he clicks the Diagramview button.

    Please note that this is just an explanation of the different view buttons.

  • 20 CHAPTER 2. COMPLETE EXAMPLE: FROM LEAD TO SALES ORDER

  • 21

    Part II

    Managing Customer Acquisition

  • 22

  • 23

    Managing your Address Book 3What is the difference between a partner and a contact in OpenERP? A Partner represents an entitythat you do business with - a customer, a prospect, or even an employee of your company. In otherCRM applications, a partner is also referred to as an Account. A Contact represents a person whoworks for a partner.

    Each partner can have an unlimited number of contacts. OpenERP also allows you to have severalcontacts with the same address type for one partner. You can easily link several Invoice addresses to acustomer, for instance.

    Address Types

    If you have recorded several contacts for the same partner, you cantell OpenERP which contact will be used in various documents (e.g. aquotation) by specifying the Address Type.

    For example, a partner (company) can have a delivery address that differsfrom the company’s invoice address. If the Address Types are correctlyassigned, OpenERP can automatically select the appropriate address duringthe creation of the document – an invoice is addressed to the contact thathas been assigned the Address Type of Invoice, otherwise to the Defaultaddress.

    The concept of a partner in OpenERP is much more flexible than in many other managementapplications. Why is that? Because a partner can be your supplier and your customer at the sametime. As a consequence, any data you update for that partner will apply to both customer and supplier!Thanks to this, you no longer need to update your address book several times (or even in several places)for the same partner.

    The partner form contains information about the company, such as its corporate name, its primarylanguage, and whether the company is a Customer and/or a Supplier . The partner form iscomposed of several tabs.

    • the General tab contains information about different contacts of that partner, postal information,communication information and the categories the partner belongs to,

    • the Sales & Purchases tab contains information such as the default salesman and sales team, andthe website,

    • the History tab gives visibility on the complete Communication History (meetings,marketing campaign activities, leads and opportunities, phone calls, emails) with the partner.The events the partner has been involved in are created automatically by different documents likephone calls, leads, meetings,

    • the Notes tab is an area for free text notes.

  • 24 CHAPTER 3. MANAGING YOUR ADDRESS BOOK

    Figure 3.1: The History Tab of a Customer

    3.1 Creating and Updating Partners

    Before explaining you how to create a partner, just a quick word on the different ways of representingpartners in OpenERP. List view shows a list of customers (the default representation when you click theCustomers menu). In this view, you can see several customers at a time. Form view is displayed whenyou click a specific customer to start editing or when you create a new customer.

    To create a new partner (a company, customer, supplier, ...) or to display the list of existing customers,use the menu Sales → Address Book → Customers. This menu does not only allow you to create a newpartner, but also to search for partners.

    Mandatory

    Blue fields are always mandatory, meaning that you have to enter a valuethere. It is impossible to save changes as long as a blue field is notcompleted.

    You should at least enter the company’s Name in the partner form. Some fields are text fields, otherfields may be linked to existing data that have been entered elsewhere, such as Countries.

    Create a customer with the following data:

  • CHAPTER 3. MANAGING YOUR ADDRESS BOOK 25

    Figure 3.2: A Customer Form

    • Name : Smith and Offspring,

    • Customer checkbox : checked,

    • Supplier checkbox : unchecked,

    • Contact Name : Stephen Smith,

    • Type : Default, in the Postal Address section,

    • Save the form.

    Email

    If you use the email gateway, the Outlook or the Thunderbird plugin, do notforget to register an email addresses to each contact, so that the gateway willautomatically attach incoming emails to the right partner.

    To update a partner, open the corresponding form, select Edit and change the required fields. Asexplained before, when a company is both one of your customers and a supplier, you just have to editthe partner form once to have changes applied to both customer and supplier.

    Checkboxes

    Why is it important for you to correctly set the Customer and Suppliercheckboxes in the partner form? These checkboxes are designed toenable OpenERP to quickly select the partners who should be displayedin some drop-down boxes. An example: when you select a partner in aSales Quotation, OpenERP will only allow you to select from the list ofCustomers. And that is precisely what the Customer checkbox is used for.

  • 26 CHAPTER 3. MANAGING YOUR ADDRESS BOOK

    3.2 Managing your Contacts & Addresses

    You can have several contacts for one partner. Contacts represent company employees that you are intouch with, along with their address details. For each address you can indicate the type (Default,Invoice, Delivery, Contact or Other).

    Contacts can be entered into the General tab of the Customer form, or from the list of addresses in theSales → Address Book → Addresses menu.

    Same Contact, Different Partners

    Do you have contacts who work for several companies, and need to belinked to several partners? Check out the An Alternative to Manage yourContacts (page 29) chapter.

    3.3 Customizing Partner Fields

    OpenERP also allows you to customize the Partner view to your needs. Click the Manage Viewsoption if you want to add fields, delete fields or change the order of fields in a view.

    Let us add the Birthday field to a contact, in the Addresses form view. To do so, go to the Sales→ Address Book → Addresses menu and open any address in Form view. In the right menu bar, clickManage Views, then Edit because the corresponding view will already be preselected.

    Go to the last line of the view and click the blue plus (+) sign to add a field to the Communicationgroup. Proceed as in the figure below, then click the Update button.

    Figure 3.3: Add the Birthday Field for a Contact

    In the Properties screen that appears, you can change the label to Birthday in the String field. Toindicate that a new field can be used in the corresponding search view, make sure to select Always

  • CHAPTER 3. MANAGING YOUR ADDRESS BOOK 27

    Searchable. Click the Update button to confirm your changes. Click Preview to see your result.The Birthday field will now appear in your Address form view, ready to be used.

    3.4 Performing Actions on Customers

    At the right side of the Customers list or form view, you will find a list of all of the reports, actions andlinks available for the selected partner(s). You can perform actions and print reports both from List andfrom Form view, List view allowing you to do actions for several partners at the same time.

    Actions

    To display the list of possible actions, just select one or more customers orclick the arrow at the top of the right side bar.

    You can create a new opportunity for a customer, or start a mass mailing. Mass mailings will usuallybe started from list view, because you will select several partners at a time.

    Campaigns

    For mass mailings, you might prefer to use the Direct Marketingapplication, which offers great functionality (please refer to chapter Drivingyour Marketing Campaigns (page 77)).

    Another action enables you to quickly send an SMS message.

    Send an SMS message

    To send an SMS message from standard Open ERP you will haveto place an order with the bulk SMS gateway operator Clickatell™http://clickatell.com.

    To send an SMS message to a partner or a selection of several partners, firstselect the partners in list view, then click the SMS Send Action icon.

    3.5 Finding your Partners using Filters

    Open the Customers list view to discover the search options allowing you to easily filter your partners.You can group by Salesman to see which customers have already been assigned a salesman or not.Click the button at the right (the icon of the person) to see the customers you are responsible for.

    http://clickatell.com

  • 28 CHAPTER 3. MANAGING YOUR ADDRESS BOOK

    Limit

    If you want to display more than the 20 partners displayed by default, clickthe 1 to 20 of - XX option at the bottom of the screen to be able tochange the limit.

    Filters also allow you to quickly set lists of customers for which you want to do specific actions.Through the New Filter option, you can also add your own filters for any field related to theCustomer form.

    Filters

    You can easily create your own frequently used filters by prefiltering thedata the way you want and then using the Save Filter option.

    3.6 Categorizing your Partners

    OpenERP uses categories to organize all of its partners according to their relationship with yourcompany (customer, prospect, supplier, and so on). Each partner may be attached to several categories.To open the list of available partner categories, use the menu Sales → Configuration → Address Book→ Partner Categories.

    Click one of the categories in the partner category structure to get a list of the partners in that category.If you click a category that has subcategories, you will get a list of all of the partners in the maincategory and in all of its subcategories.

    Categories

    To create a new category, go to the menu Sales → Configuration → AddressBook → Partner Categories and click the New button.

    Because categories can be organized according to a tree structure, you can apply an action at any levelof the structure: a marketing promotion activity, for example, can be applied either to all customers, orselectively only to customers in one category and its subcategories.

    You can create your own categories and assign them to your partner from the Customer form. Anotherway of assigning the corresponding partner to a category is to open the category from the PartnerCategories.

    In the Profiling your Customers (page 93) chapter, you will see how to assign partners to categoriesautomatically using segmentation rules.

  • CHAPTER 3. MANAGING YOUR ADDRESS BOOK 29

    Figure 3.4: List of Partner Categories

    3.7 An Alternative to Manage your Contacts

    According to your kind of business, the standard way of linking several contacts to one partner maynot be flexible enough for you. You could perfectly well have the same employees working for severalof your companies. Or maybe you work with representatives ensuring follow up of several of yourcustomers. So you would want to have the same contact linked to different partners.

    Of course, OpenERP provides an alternative, the base_contactmodule, which gives you even moreflexibility in managing your contacts.

    Easily share the same contact (an employee, for instance), who may perfectly have different jobs, withseveral partners. You only need to enter (or create) the contact once and link it to the partners concerned,while specifying the position the contact holds for each company in particular. Any changes to contactinformation only need to be made once for them to be applied to all partners the contact is related to!

    We illustrate the concept of multiple relationships between contacts and partners (companies) throughan example. The figure Advanced Contact Management (page 30) shows two companies having severaladdresses (places of business) and several contacts attached to these addresses.

    In this example you will find the following elements:

  • 30 CHAPTER 3. MANAGING YOUR ADDRESS BOOK

    • The ABC bank has two places of business, represented by the addresses of ABC Belgium andABC Luxembourg,

    • The addresses of Dexey France and Dexey Belgium belong to the Dexey company,

    • At the office of ABC Luxembourg, you have the contacts of the director (D. Smith) and theaccountant (A. Doe),

    • Mr Doe holds the post of accountant for ABC Luxembourg and Dexey France,

    • Mr D. Smith is director of Dexey France and Dexey Belgium and we also have his private addresswhich is not attached to a partner.

    An extra menu option will be added, allowing you to display the list of contacts, through Sales →Address Book → Contacts.

    The screenshot below illustrates how contacts are handled with the advanced Contacts configuration.

    Figure 3.5: Advanced Contact Management

    This is a clear way to illustrate the complexities that may be accomplished in OpenERP.

    If you correct or change a contact name in the contact form, the changes will be applied to all the postsoccupied in the different companies.

    The screen below represents a partner form. You can add several addresses, such as Invoice & Delivery,and a list of contacts per address. Each contact has its own data, such as name, function, phone numberand email.

    Go to Sales → Address Book → Contacts to open a contact form. You enter data in the contact form,containing information such as mobile phone, different functions occupied, and personal blog. Youcan also add a photo of your contact. If you click the Functions and Addresses line, you will get moredetails about the job (such as start date, end date and fax).

  • CHAPTER 3. MANAGING YOUR ADDRESS BOOK 31

    Figure 3.6: Partner Form with the Advanced Contacts Management

  • 32 CHAPTER 3. MANAGING YOUR ADDRESS BOOK

    Figure 3.7: Detail of a Position occupied by a Contact at a Partner

  • 33

    Managing your Leads 4To define leads, imagine a bucket full of potential sales contacts expressing an interest in yourcompany’s products.

    A lead represents a potential customer with whom you have not established a relationship yet. Usuallya lead contains valuable information to realise future sales opportunities. However, the most commonmistake is that such key information too often gets lost, because it is registered nowhere. And evenwhen registered, it might still be difficult to track any activity for that lead, because the information isnot at hand when you need it.

    Storing leads information in a central place such as OpenERP will release you of these worries.

    So when would you create a lead in OpenERP, either manually or automatically? The following eventscould be a trigger:

    • An inquiry email sent to one of your company’s generic email addresses, such [email protected], from the mailgateway,

    • A business card from a prospective customer met briefly at an exhibition: you have to contact himagain to qualify the lead and to know if there is any possibility of a sales opportunity; registeredmanually,

    • A database of potential customers in a given sector and region imported through a CSV file.The potential customers have to be contacted again individually or through a mass mailing todetermine which contacts require further follow-up,

    • An interesting contact that you met during a business networking event. You have to qualify itbefore assigning a salesperson to the contact,

    • A form completed on your website directly integrated into OpenERP using our webservice.Before converting the form into a sales proposition or opportunity, you should read and handlethe person’s request.

    Employees in the marketing or presales department will usually work on leads. Once these leads willbe converted into customers and/or sales opportunities, the sales department pays individual attentionto each opportunity. Of course, before converting a lead into an opportunity, some qualification workhas to be done.

    OpenERP allows you to easily configure the way your company qualifies leads. You can create yourown stages through Sales → Configuration → Leads & Opportunities → Stages. Use the sequencenumber to determine the order of the stages, i.e. 10 for First Call, 20 for Renewing Contact and so on.Of course, you can also drag & drop a stage to another place to automatically change the order of allthe stages. A salesman can change the status of the lead according to the response from the prospectand enter the result of this contact in the lead form (e.g. in the Notes field).

    From the Sales → Sales → Leads menu, you can qualify each individual lead through the Stage fieldthat is found up to the right of the lead definition. To move your lead automatically to the next stepfrom the list of leads, you can use the button that looks like a green, right arrow.

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  • 34 CHAPTER 4. MANAGING YOUR LEADS

    Leads can be assigned to a Sales Team for easy follow-up (see Adapting OpenERP to your SalesOrganization (page 43)). Each user can be added to a default sales team which can be specified inthe User Preferences. When you define a tree structure for your sales teams, you can also escalate alead to another sales team for further actions.

    Leads or Opportunities

    Companies may decide to not use leads, but instead to keep all informationdirectly in an opportunity. For some companies, leads are merely anextra step in the sales process. You could call this extended (startfrom lead) versus simplified (start from opportunity) customer relationshipmanagement. OpenERP perfectly allows for either one of these approachesto be chosen. If your company handles its sales from opportunities directly,feel free to move on to chapter Optimizing your Sales Cycle throughOpportunities (page 41), although most of the features explained belowalso apply to opportunities.

    In the next sections we will explain in more detail some examples of what Leads in OpenERP can beused for.

    Leads Menu is not displayed

    In Simplified view, Leads will not be displayed. To see not alsoopportunities, but also leads, you should switch to the Extended view.You can easily switch from Simplified to Extended view by changing yourUser Preferences through the Edit Preferences button.

    4.1 Storing your Business Cards effectively

    Potential customers are usually entered as a lead in the system. This means that you do not create apartner or a sales opportunity until you have qualified whether the lead is interesting or not.

    Qualification

    When a qualified lead requires further actions, you can turn the lead into apartner and, eventually, a sales opportunity.

    To make a new lead, go to the Sales → Sales → Leads menu and click the New button. In the Leadform that opens, you can enter the contact data of this new potential customer and add notes.

    You can also set the status of a lead according to the qualification work that has been carried out:

    • Draft : the lead data have been entered, no work has been done yet and a salesperson has notyet been assigned to the request,

  • CHAPTER 4. MANAGING YOUR LEADS 35

    Figure 4.1: Creating a New Lead

    • Open: the lead is being handled,

    • Closed: the lead has been converted into a partner and/or a sales opportunity,

    • Pending: the lead is waiting for a response from the potential customer,

    • Escalate: the lead is escalated to the upper sales team in the tree structure for further actions,

    • Cancelled: the lead has been cancelled because the salesperson has decided that it is not worthfollowing up.

    A lead status can easily be changed, even from list view (the standard view when you start the Leadsprogram). Simply click the green arrows to change the status of a lead.

    On the Extra tab in the Leads form, you find statistics about days to open and close and moreinformation about the campaign, the channel, and so on.

    On the Communication & History tab in the Leads form, you can see a complete history of all actionsregarding this lead. You can also add internal notes and change the status of a lead while adding such anote. Send an email directly from the lead simply by clicking the Send New Email button (to configureyour email settings, please refer to chapter Communication Tools (page 53). You can add attachmentsto internal notes and emails you send to the prospect. You can customize your message and have thestatus changed after an email has been sent; you could automatically have the lead set to Pending,because you require a response from the customer before further actions can be taken.

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    Figure 4.2: Extra Tab

    Figure 4.3: Communication & History Tab

    4.2 Importing a Leads Database

    You can also import a huge list of leads. That may be useful if you have bought a database of potentialprospects that you want to load into OpenERP to handle them all at the same time.

    Start with a list of leads in CSV format, for instance. If your prospects database is provided in anotherformat, you can easily convert it to the CSV format using Microsoft Excel or OpenOffice Calc.

    Import

    The best thing to do to make sure your import will go smoothly, first exportall the required Lead fields using the Export function, and then edit theresulting csv file for import.

    Open the Leads form using the menu Sales → Sales → Leads. In Other Options, click the Import link.(You can also import from List view, just open the action window on the right (by clicking the arrow)and in Other Options, click the Import link.)

    Select your file containing the leads information and click Import File. OpenERP will automaticallymap the column headers from your CSV file to the corresponding fields in OpenERP. If necessary, youcan click CSV Options to change the settings so that they match your local settings.

    Check the online chapter about system administration for more information on import and export onhttp://doc.openerp.com/v6.0/book/.

    http://doc.openerp.com/v6.0/book/

  • CHAPTER 4. MANAGING YOUR LEADS 37

    Figure 4.4: Importing Leads into the System

    Various Imports

    Importing and Exporting data in OpenERP is a generic function availableto all resources. So you can import and export such lists as partners,opportunities, accounting entries, products and price lists.

    Clearly there are other methods of generating leads automatically or semi-automatically:

    • Through a Contact Form on your Website;

    • Using the Outlook or Thunderbird plugin to insert new leads directly from the salesman’s mailboxwhen he sees promising emails,

    • Using the email gateway for each incoming email from a certain address (such [email protected]) which may create a lead automatically from the contents of the email.

    These different methods are described later in this book (see chapter Automating your Lead Acquisition(page 89)).

    4.3 Organizing Leads

    To help the users organize and handle leads efficiently, OpenERP provides several features in the CRMto be used according to the needs of each:

    Use the Sales → Sales → Leads view to organize your leads:

    • Display a list of all the leads (qualified, open, not open, ...) according to the sales team you arelinked to,

    • Create a new lead by clicking New,

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  • 38 CHAPTER 4. MANAGING YOUR LEADS

    • Display Unassigned Leads, click the button next to the Salesman field,

    • Display a list of all your leads you still need to handle (your open and draft leads),

    • Display a list of all your leads that are waiting for a customer response (usually in Pending status).This enables you to check periodically on your work to do,

    • Display a list of all the leads assigned to different salespeople,

    • Use Extended Filters to display all the leads created today or during the last week, in a specifictime period, and so on,

    • Quickly find leads not yet assigned to a Campaign, by clicking the Group by button and thenCampaign.

    The sales manager can use this Leads view to easily keep track of what each salesperson is workingon.

    Figure 4.5: List of Leads to be Handled

    Leads can also be prioritized. Salespeople can assign a priority to their lead, and then start working ontheir leads from the top of the list, which is sorted by priority.

    4.4 Analysing Leads

    OpenERP also offers statistical reports to keep track of your Lead Management. The Sales → Reporting→ Leads Analysis report allows you to check various leads-related elements. You can look at processing

  • CHAPTER 4. MANAGING YOUR LEADS 39

    delays, number of responses given and emails sent (if you use the email gateway feature). Sort yourleads analysis by different groups to get accurate, grained analysis.

    These are some analysis possibilities of the Leads Analysis report.

    1. Leads by State and per Month

    To analyse the leads by status, group the leads by qualification level (Stage) and status (State), thiscan also be done for individual months (first group by Month).

    2. Leads by Origin

    Analyse leads according to their state (open, lost, won) and their stage (e.g. cold / hot or new /qualification / ... ) and find out how many leads belong to each state / stage.

    3. How effective are your Campaigns?

    Group by Campaign to easily find the number of leads by campaign and the total number of leads. Youcan also select a specific campaign in your filter.

    4. Leads by Priority.

    Group by Priority to see which leads are hot, warm or cold.

    Figure 4.6: Leads Analysis

  • 40 CHAPTER 4. MANAGING YOUR LEADS

  • 41

    Optimizing your Sales Cycle through

    Opportunities 5While a lead represents the first contact with a prospect yet to be qualified, a sales opportunity representsa potential contract. Each opportunity has to be followed up by a salesperson (or sales team) spendingtime to qualify the opportunity, and this either by making a quotation or canceling the opportunity.

    Leads are generally handled by the dozen, with the automation of certain responses or emails.Opportunities, on the contrary, are usually tracked one by one by the salespeople, because anopportunity involves a negotiation process with the customer to be.

    Just like for leads, OpenERP provides specific features to handle sales opportunities efficiently. Allopportunities can be found in the menu Sales → Sales → Opportunities.

    With opportunities, you can manage and keep track of your sales pipeline by creating specific customer-or prospect-related sales documents to follow up potential sales. Information such as expected revenue,opportunity stage, expected closing date, communication history, next action date, next action, andmuch more can be stored.

    Opportunities can be connected to the email gateway: new emails may create opportunities, each ofthem automatically gets the history of the conversation with the customer. You and your sales team(s)will be able to plan meetings and phone calls from opportunities, convert them into quotations, managerelated documents, track all customer-related activities, and much more.

    Attachments

    By default, you can keep attachments in OpenERP to make sure all linkeddocuments are directly accessible. At the right side of the screen, underAttachments, click the Add button to start linking documents to youropportunity. With the Browse button, you can search for the file to beattached in your directories. You can add attachments in the same wayfor leads, for instance. If you also want those documents to be indexed (notfor pictures), you should install the Knowledge Application.

    5.1 Converting Leads into Customers or Opportunities

    If the salesperson thinks that the lead has been well qualified and that there is a real opportunity,following the contact he had with the prospect, he can easily convert the lead into a partner / opportunityusing the button Convert to Opportunity.

    Clicking the Convert to Opportunity button offers several possibilities, allowing you also to avoidduplicate partners:

    • You can decide to just create the opportunity and keep the contact data from the lead without

  • 42 CHAPTER 5. OPTIMIZING YOUR SALES CYCLE THROUGH OPPORTUNITIES

    creating a partner,

    • You can convert to an opportunity, and create a new partner if it does not exist yet, or merge thecontact with an existing partner,

    • You first create a partner, and later you convert the lead to an opportunity.

    To create only a partner, click the button Create next to the Customer field. You can also decide toadd the contact data of the lead as a new contact to an existing partner.

    OpenERP shows a window allowing you to select:

    • whether you want to create a new partner,

    • whether you want to link this contact to an existing partner (merge).

    OpenERP opens a partner form containing the information from the lead. At this stage you cancomplete the contact details or add any other information for the partner.

    The partner created is automatically attached to the lead, which enables you to keep completetraceability from the lead. To find this information, you should take a look at the Communication& History tab in the lead.

    Instead, you can also combine the step of creating a partner and directly the lead converting into anopportunity through the Convert to Opportunity feature.

    Convert to Opportunity

    When you click the Convert to Opportunity button and the email addressof the new contact is filled out, OpenERP will check whether this emailaddress corresponds to an email address of an existing partner. If so,OpenERP will directly propose to merge the new contact with the partnerfound.

    When you click the Convert to Opportunity button and the partner already exists, OpenERP opens awindow allowing you to select:

    • whether you want to create a new opportunity,

    • whether you want to add this lead to an existing opportunity (merge).

    OpenERP shows the title of the opportunity (taken from the lead description) and the partner. Makesure to enter the estimated revenue and the success rate (probability) of converting to a sales.

  • CHAPTER 5. OPTIMIZING YOUR SALES CYCLE THROUGH OPPORTUNITIES 43

    Figure 5.1: Converting a Lead into a Sales Opportunity

    Figure 5.2: From Lead to Opportunity: Details

    5.2 Adapting OpenERP to your Sales Organization

    Your sales organization may be composed of several groups which for instance address differentcustomer segments or geographies, sell different products and services and often manage differentsales cycles. As a manager you will want to track the performance not only for each individual but alsofor each group.

    OpenERP allows you to do that by defining Sales Teams. A sales team is a group of sales people whoare performing a similar position. Implementing sales teams is a powerful tool. It allows you to:

    • Assign leads or opportunities according to their nature to a sales team first. Then accordingto the company’s policy, the opportunities can be assigned to a given individual. For exampleopportunities can be assigned to a Western Region sales team or Eastern Region sales team inthe first place according to their location. Each sales person may pick unassigned opportunitiesin his sales team according to his availability,

    • You can group your sales teams according to a tree structure (hierarchy). This allows you to havea view of your sales activity at different granular levels (local, regional, national for instance),

    • Some sales teams may manage their opportunities through different sales cycles. For instance acar dealership which addresses both the residential and corporate customers, will have differentsales cycles.

    • For each sales team, you can assign a responsible user and an email address that will be used whencreating or replying to emails from OpenERP. This will be proposed by default in OpenERP whenyou create an event for this customer.

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    Sales Teams

    To define your Sales Teams, go to Sales → Configuration → Sales → SalesTeams.

    Let us take the example of a bank to explain how you can define your sales teams. A bank hasseveral departments, such as Insurance, Accounts, Assets, Credit Management. Each departmentmay be divided into several subdepartments. For Insurance, this could be Group Insurance and HomeInsurance. The hierarchical structure of your Sales Teams could then be as follows:

    • Insurance Sales Team– Group Insurance– Home Insurance

    • Accounts Sales Team

    • Assets Sales Team

    • Credit Management Sales Team

    5.3 Defining the Key Steps of your Sales Cycle

    Each company will have similar, yet customized stages to qualify opportunities.

    To see & define stages for Opportunity qualification, go to Sales → Configuration → Opportunities →Stages.

    The key steps of your Sales Cycle are what OpenERP calls Stages. You can use the stages to improveyour sales capacity, because they allow you to find out the reasons why deals succeed or fail.

    Stages will allow salesmen to easily track where a specific opportunity is positioned in the sales cycle.One of the frequent difficulties in using stages is that different sales people may assess differently inwhich stage their sales opportunity should be. You can avoid this by clearly stating what you expect asa result for each stage. This way, your sales teams will use the same stages throughout the qualificationprocess, allowing the sales manager to get accurate and consistent information. We also recommend tolimit the number of stages in your sales cycle to make them easy to follow up.

    As you progress in your sales cycle, and move from one stage to another, you can expect to have moreprecise information about a given opportunity. For example, when setting an opportunity as ‘Qualified’,you may decide that the salesman has to enter the “Expected Revenue” and the “Expected ClosingDate.” You can also have the probability changed automatically when changing stages, by selectingthe “Change Probability Automatically” checkbox. If checked, OpenERP will set the probability of theopportunity to the probability defined in the stage. If you set a probability of 0% (Lost) or 100% (Won),OpenERP will assign the corresponding stage when the opportunity is marked as Lost or Won.

    As an example, to track your opportunities, you can assign the following stages to the sales team. Foreach stage, you assume you will define criteria that have to be met prior to moving to the next stage.

  • CHAPTER 5. OPTIMIZING YOUR SALES CYCLE THROUGH OPPORTUNITIES 45

    1. Territory - Segment your opportunities into territories.

    2. Qualified – Attract the prospect’s interest, determine whether the prospect has a need.

    What is the expected result?• The need to buy the product/service has been confirmed,• Confirm that there is a budget.

    3. Qualified Sponsors – Ask the right questions and listen carefully to identify and thoroughlyunderstand the prospect’s needs.

    What is the expected result?• Current pain points identified,• Identify what the prospect wants to achieve,• Identify the decision-maker.

    3. Proposition – Discuss some solutions to determine the customer’s preferences, recommendspecific solutions to answer the customer’s needs.

    What is the expected result?• Demo and/or Proposal given,• Decision maker confirmed his interest to purchase,• Preliminary pricing confirmed/agreed upon.

    4. Negotiation – Submit the final proposal to the customer and begin the negotiation process.

    What is the expected result?• Negotiation concluded,• Contract terms/conditions agreed upon,• Contract submitted for signature.

    5. Won/Lost – Register the final step of the opportunity.

    What is the expected result?• Contract signed / not signed,• Next steps.

    You can apply your own stages throughout the qualification process by means of the Stage field thatis found up to the right of the opportunity definition. To move an opportunity automatically to the nextstep, you can use the button that looks like a green, right arrow.

    OpenERP also has other sales configuration options; you can define your Campaigns, allowing youto keep track of the event your leads and opportunities refer to. Examples of campaigns are GoogleAdwords, an event you are hosting, a newsletter. With Categories you identify your prospect’s needs(e.g. Needs Training, Needs OpenERP Online), while Channels help you to keep visibility on how thelead or opportunity entered the system (email, website, referred by an existing customer).

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    Figure 5.3: Example of Opportunity Stages

    5.4 Planning your Next Actions

    When a lead has been converted into an opportunity, the latter can be assigned to any salesperson.You might designate an opportunity manager in the company who is responsible for assigning the newopportunities to different salespeople according to the job they do, their location or availability.

    Of course, OpenERP allows you to automate such steps in your sales cycle. With Automated Rules youcan tell the system for instance to automatically assign opportunities to a sales person or to change thestatus of an opportunity according to specific criteria.

    Automated Actions

    To access the CRM rules, use the Sales → Configuration → AutomatedActions → Automated Actions menu.

    Let’s give an example of what you can use Automated Actions for. Suppose you want to have OpenERPassign opportunities for customers in the IT Sector category directly to Thomas, your IT salesman.Thomas should be assigned automatically when a lead is converted to an opportunity by clicking theConvert to Opportunity button in the Leads screen. This can be set through the Object field in theAutomated Actions form; just select Convert/Merge Opportunity.

    The screenshots below illustrate how you can tell OpenERP to do this automatically for you.

    When you answer to an opportunity from the Communication & History tab, you can directly have thestatus of the opportunity changed. You can also add a Global CC, even with multiple email addressesseparated by ‘;’. This ensures that when any email regarding this opportunity is sent, all the personsdefined in Global CC will be notified.

    Planning your next actions also refers to filling fields or performing actions manually, withoutinterference of automated rules. It is important that you fill all the opportunity fields accurately. Toensure good follow-up and prioritise your opportunities, make sure to register the Next ActionDate and the Next Action in the Opportunity. In the Opportunities screen, you can group yoursearch results by these fields, so that you know exactly how to plan your work.

    You can use the filters to group by Priority and then click the Next Action Date column tosort by next action date to easily follow up your opportunities and know exactly what you have to do.

  • CHAPTER 5. OPTIMIZING YOUR SALES CYCLE THROUGH OPPORTUNITIES 47

    Figure 5.4: Step 1: Conditions Tab of Automated Actions

    Figure 5.5: Step 2: Actions Tab of Automated Actions

    5.5 Planning your Meetings & Calls Effectively

    Planning your meetings & calls does not only allow you to structure your work, but also to improveyour sales skills by learning from your call & meeting history. For both Meetings & Calls, you canenter a complete report of what you discuss!

    As explained in chapter Complete Example: from Lead to Sales Order (page 11), you can schedule ameeting directly from an opportunity. When you create a meeting from an opportunity, related fieldswill be prefilled from the opportunity. For the ease of reading, Thomas will schedule a new meetingfrom an opportunity here and set Luc, the Sales Manager, as the person responsible for the meeting. Hewants to send Luc a reminder 1 day before the meeting starts.

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    Schedule a Meeting from an Opportunity

    To plan the meeting, Thomas clicks the Schedule Meeting button in theOpportunity and clicks the Week button in the Calendar view. He usesthe drag and drop function to schedule the meeting for Luc. He plans themeeting next Wednesday from 2 pm to 3 pm. He sets Luc as the personresponsible and sets a reminder to be send 1 day before the start of themeeting. He also changes the Next Action Date in the opportunity tothe meeting date.

    You can also schedule a meeting directly from a Customer form. Go to the customer for whom youwant to schedule a meeting and open the form view. In the list of actions at the right side of the screen,click Schedule a Meeting. If you stay in the Month view of the Calendar, you just have to click theday you want the meeting to be planned, let’s say Thursday in two weeks. A meeting form will bedisplayed, with the name of the customer and the date prefilled.

    Another way to enter a meeting request, is to directly use the meeting calendar from the menu Sales →Meetings → Meetings. You can use the monthly, weekly or daily views to plan a meeting by selectingthe corresponding buttons. You can also click a day in the Navigator window to schedule a meeting.

    In the Meeting window, enter the meeting data such as meeting summary, type, duration. In the weeklyand daily views, you can also press the left mouse button in the calendar and slide the mouse alongto create an event of several hours. OpenERP then opens an entry screen for a new meeting. You canadd reminders (or Alarms) to your meetings and send invitations, either to persons from your owncompany, partner contacts or external people (just specify the email address directly in the invitation).You can send invitations before or after confirmation of a meeting. Either from the meeting itself orfrom the separate Event Invitations view in the menu Sales → Configuration → Calendar → EventInvitations, you can track and change the attendee statuses. If you cannot attend a meeting, you candelegate it to one of your colleagues.

    Alarms or Meeting Reminders

    Add your own alarms through Sales → Configuration → Calendar →Alarms. You might want to be warned one week in advance of the meeting,so all you have to do is create your own alarm